


Sugar and Cyanide

by DestinyWolfe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Future AU, Love, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Stucky - Freeform, Viral Apocalypse, dystopian au, stevebucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-14 17:18:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4573002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyWolfe/pseuds/DestinyWolfe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a devastating plague decimated the world’s population, the remainder of humanity was forced into bunkers and safe houses for over twenty years. When they finally reemerged, the survivors found that everyone infected with the virus had died off, save for the non-symptomatic Carriers who now wander the abandoned city streets.</p><p>Fearing a revival of the virus, the New World Order created an enhanced class of humans sworn to defend the world’s last civilized city. They found people willing to give up everything in exchange for superhuman abilities and viral immunity. This team is the Avengers, ruthless hunters of Carriers, the infected, and those who harbor them.</p><p>For Steve Rogers, who spent his first eighteen years of life beneath the city’s surface, joining Project Insight—the top secret mission to take down safety networks sheltering Carriers—is the ultimate dream. With the enhanced body and immunity of an Avenger, he hopes to prevent another outbreak and save thousands of people.</p><p>For Bucky Barnes, a Carrier left to fend for himself on the surface, staying one step ahead of Project Insight means doing whatever it takes to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Assignment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU has been trying to get my attention for a long time, so I finally decided to write the first chapter. I have no idea where I'm going to go from here, honestly, but I like the idea of Steve and Bucky falling in love in a horrible, plague-ridden future where relationships and touching are banned and Bucky and people like him are being hunted for being naturally immune to the virus. So yeah. I might continue with this, might not, but anyway, here's the first chapter! ^)^

"Careful, big guy. Almost bumped me back there.” 

“Sorry, Nat,” Steve sighs, tucking in his elbows. “I’m still not used to this new body.” He suppresses a shiver. The night air is brisker than usual, tainted with the threat of snow. The alleyway where he and his team are walking is dank and narrow, barely wide enough for two people to comfortably walk side-by-side. 

“We should get you an ‘Oversize Load’ sign,” Natasha says. “We could tape it right here.” She gives his ass a pat as she sweeps past. She throws a smirk over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. The dim light of the single flickering streetlight reflects off her fine-featured face. There’s a teasing light in her sea-foam eyes. 

“Would you stop flirting with my girlfriend?” Clint complains from behind. He strides up on Steve’s right, matching Natasha step-for-step. “You two are gonna get thrown in jail. Didn’t your moms teach you about the no-touching rule?” 

“Hey,” Steve throws up his hands, “she started it.” 

“Girlfriend?” Natasha scoffs at the same time. “Barton, you’re the one who’s going to end up in jail. You know how the Masters feel about relationships. Real or pretend.” 

“Guys. Stop. Headache.” Tony Stark—the Avengers’ resident mechanical genius and sarcastic comeback creator extraordinaire—groans dramatically. To further make his point, he forcefully grinds the heels of his hands into his temples. Steve is about ninety-nine percent sure that’s not how you fix a headache, but decides not to point that out. 

Even though her face is turned away, Steve knows that Natasha is rolling her eyes. “If you’re going to be a crybaby, Stark, go home,” she says coolly. 

Tony has just opened his mouth, most likely ready with the perfect retort, when a massive explosion fills the alleyway with fire. 

_“DOWN!”_ Steve screams, diving into a side-alley just in time. He feels rather than sees Natasha throw herself down beside him, her hip digging into his thigh. He shifts to cover her body with his, ducking his head and drawing up his knees. Her breath is right in his ear. Even through the ringing in his head, he can hear it, loud and ragged like a knife wound. 

“There’s a second bomb,” she hisses. He doesn’t pause to ask how she knows. He’s worked with her long enough to know not to make that mistake. 

“Romanov! Rogers!” Clint’s hair is singed and sticking up like a mad scientist’s. There’s a smear of blood on his forehead, but other than that he seems to have made it out unscathed. He’s panting as he stops in front of them. Between breaths, he manages to explain what happened. “Stark killed the second grenade,” he begins, “Thor went after our guy.” 

Steve rises to his feet. He gives Clint a quick, sharp nod. “You hurt?” 

Clint shakes his head. “Stark got hit bad, though. We need to get him out of here. Now.” 

“I’ll find him,” Natasha says. She rises alongside Steve, shooting him a glance and the hint of a smile as she goes. He knows that’s her way of saying ‘thank you’; when she smiles, it always means something. Sometimes victory, sometimes the grudging acceptance of grim defeat. She never smiles at nothing. 

Clint watches her go with rapt attention. “Stark needs medics. I’ll call them in.” He takes off in the opposite direction, heading for the nearest communication center. “Meet you back at the Tower, Rogers,” he calls over his shoulder. 

Left alone in the narrow alleyway, Steve walks as if in a dream back toward ground zero. His head spins and his ears ring from the explosion. Stark better be okay, he thinks, his heart sinking when he remembers what Clint said. Although Steve has only been with the Avengers—an elite team of superhumans tasked with defending the remainder of humanity from the Strocosia Morbus plague—for a little over three months, he’s already grown to care for them all. Each is different and brilliant in their own way. Tony Stark is a mechanical genius with a wickedly sharp wit; Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton are master assassins who work together so beautifully that Steve half believes they can communicate telepathically; Thor is the best fighter in the city, and can make anything—from a workman’s hammer to a power cord or a rotten apple—into a deadly weapon. Bruce Banner is both a brilliant scientist and the much needed voice of reason in the group, calmly pulling Tony back from the edge whenever the engineer gets too excited about a new (and usually dangerous) invention or project. Steve is their leader and moral guide, making sure unnecessary casualties stay low and the successful mission count stays high. They’re like parts in a machine; without any one of them, the whole group would malfunction and fall apart. 

When he arrives, Steve sees that the alleyway is burned and blackened, the garbage heaped in the gutters still smoking. The putrid smell sticks in Steve’s nose and coats his tongue and throat. It stings his eyes, catches in his lungs. 

“Rogers, over here.” Natasha is crouched beside a hunched and shaking form. It takes Steve a moment to realize that it’s Tony. 

“How bad is he?” Steve kneels beside her, eyes searching her half-turned face. “Natasha. Is it critical?” 

When she looks at him, he sees the fear in her eyes. It’s veiled—everything is with her—but it’s there. She swallows hard, one hand resting lightly on the top of Tony’s bowed head. “There’s shrapnel in his heart. The only reason he saw the second grenade was because he landed right next to it. He didn’t get out fast enough.” 

Panic rears, dark and ugly, in Steve’s chest. He clenches his fists, rising to his feet. “There’s gotta be something we can do.” 

She looks up at him, lips pursed. “When Thor catches the attacker, then you can do something. Whoever he is, we’re going to make him regret this.” 

Steve turns away. Tony groans; a low, pained sound. Steve closes his eyes. “Damn straight.” 

In the distance, emergency sirens blare to life. 

. . . . . . 

_~Two weeks later~_

The woman who arrives on the day Tony Stark finally wakes up is lithe and beautiful, and carries herself like a queen. When she arrives at SHIELD’s headquarters, the agents emerge from their offices to watch her pass. She has an aura of power and independence, of strength that comes from herself and no one else. An elegant dignity radiates from her like light from a flashbulb, blinding all who get caught in its beam. She calls herself Agent Carter, and her reputation billows in her wake like a matador’s cape. 

“Steve Rogers?” She asks, stopping in front of Steve. He’s standing outside of Tony’s sickroom. The lights in the hallway are flickering dully; inside the room, the equipment keeping Tony alive is sapping the generator’s energy. The building’s monthly power allowance has almost expired, and August has only just begun. 

“Yes,” Steve says. Then, remembering his manners, he dips his head respectfully and corrects himself: “Yes, ma’am.” 

She looks up at him. Her brown eyes are beautifully deep, full of bottomless intelligence. Her lips are bright red, standing out against her light skin. Her dark hair is caught up and pinned behind her head. Distantly, Steve thinks that her elegance and beauty is out of place in the dingy, half-lit medical sector. She looks like she belongs in one of the old paintings from before the plague. Like an ancient goddess trapped in a mortal body. 

When she speaks again, he almost startles at her accent. Northern Europe, he thinks. English. It’s been a long time since he’s heard anyone who sounds like her. Ever since going underground, contact with the rest of the world has been almost nonexistent. She says, “we know who’s responsible for the bombing.” She doesn’t have to say which one. “We want you to go after them.” 

“Them?” Steve asks, surprised. “I thought the authorities said it was a random attack. Last I checked there was just one perpetrator.” 

She purses her lips. “No. The responsible party was a cult called HYDRA. We’ve dealt with them before: they’re Carriers trying to return the world to how it was before the Awakening. They’re organized, and they’re dangerous. If we don’t make our move soon, it may be too late.” 

Steve swallows the questions vying for attention at the front of his mind. He nods; a quick, sharp jerk of his head. “What’s the mission?” 

She hands him a manila folder, thick with documents and printed security footage. “The details are in here.” Their fingers brush, and Steve’s whole hand tingles at the rare skin-to-skin contact. He holds his breath, waiting to be reprimanded. Her expression tightens, but she says nothing for a long moment. And then, “I expect you to get the bastard who did this.” Her gaze strays momentarily to the observation window of Tony’s room. “For all of our sakes.” 

And then Agent Carter turns around and starts back down the hall. The two tall, expressionless men with her fall in to step on either side, their polished shoes clicking dully on the tiled floor. Steve watches her go, the tingling in his hand spreading up his arm and into his chest. The feeling settles there like a baby bird, nestling warmly against his heart. 

He hasn’t run a solo mission before. Not since he joined the Avengers. He doesn’t know if he should be excited or terrified. 

After he visits Tony and hears from the doctors just how extensive the damage is, about how there’s shrapnel wedged in the engineer’s heart, the warring excitement and fear becomes mixed with bitter vengeance. _HYDRA’s going down,_ he promises himself. _Those bastards won’t know what hit them._

With the folder gripped tightly in one hand, he returns to his room to prepare for Phase One.


	2. Phase One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to work on this a bit more last night and finished a second chapter. Here it is in all its unedited glory! ^)^ Thank you so much to everyone who read, commented or left kudos; I really appreciate the support! <3

Back in his one-room apartment—which is barely big enough for a twin bed, a toilet, a sink, and a dresser--Steve settles himself down on the hardwood floor and opens the folder. When he sees the thick, dark red lettering across the top of the first page, his heart nearly stops. _Welcome to Project Insight,_ it reads. And then, _Assignment #1013, Phase One. Details listed below. Reports due after every mission to Agent Margaret Carter._

Suddenly buzzing with excitement, Steve eagerly skims down the page to the assignment details, which are listed in fine black print: 

  _• Choose a team of three to serve as your backup during Mission 001. These individuals are not to know the purpose or details of this assignment. They must be trustworthy regardless of this restriction._

  _• Track the two suspected attackers from last week’s bombing. Do not apprehend them directly. Follow them and find out who they report to._

  _• Identify and record available information concerning any and all individuals suspected of being affiliated with HYDRA and/or any Carrier safety network or shelter group._

  _• If attacked, you are authorized to use fatal force to defend yourself. Otherwise, do not kill unless the situation directly requires it. If you have reason to believe that a target is infected or is immediately putting others in danger of infection, terminate them and dispose of their bodies according to standard sanitation protocols._

  _• Film and/or photograph any important locations or artifacts connected to HYDRA or any of their allies._

  _• If compromised, do not return to the Tower. Do not betray your connection to SHIELD. If necessary to protect the identities of SHIELD operatives or other sensitive information relating to SHIELD and its operations—especially Project Insight—you are required to terminate yourself. You can find your termination injection in the back pocket of this folder. Use it only as a last resort._

  _• When you have identified both the bombers and their superiors, report back to SHIELD and return to the medical sector of the Tower for physical evaluation._

  _• Once your report is filed and you are cleared by medical, await further instruction in the Mission Room._

  _• This mission begins immediately. Do not waste any time. The longer we wait, the more time we are giving them to rally their resistance. Good luck, Captain Rogers. We eagerly await your return._

Steve reads the list several times over, his heart beating faster in his chest. _This is it,_ he thinks. He is almost numb from the shock of it—he has only been at SHIELD for five months, and an Avenger for three. He barely has the clearance to know that Project Insight exists. Whoever decided he’s ready to work on this assignment is either insane or… well, insane. Which is not to say that he doesn’t want this, because he does. More than anything. All he's ever wanted is to protect people. To make the last livable city on earth safe again. 

Skimming quickly through the rest of the folder’s contents, Steve commits as much of it to memory as he can. Tucking the most important pages and pictures into an envelope, he rises to his feet, sliding the envelope into his back pocket. Crossing the room, he turns on the tap and runs cold water over his hands for a few seconds in an attempt to calm his racing heart. He can feel a tingling in his hands and feet. His blood is full of adrenaline and his mind is flooded with endorphins. He can’t remember being this excited; not since the Awakening, when he and the other survivors finally risked returning to the surface and began rebuilding their lives above ground. Not since he saw the sun rising for the first time, or first tried to count the stars in the sky. 

After donning his civilian jeans and a leather jacket, he heads for the Downtime Room. He finds Clint and Natasha sitting with Sam Wilson at a small table, a chess set spread between them on a homemade wooden checkerboard. 

“Your move,” Sam says, sitting back and gesturing with one hand at Natasha. 

Natasha and Clint exchange a glance. They’re sitting dangerously close together, their thighs almost touching. Clint leans in to whisper something to Natasha, who smiles wickedly. He laughs, brushing his fingers across her shoulder as he draws back. What they’re doing is definitely against regulations, Steve thinks. If not for their artificial immunity, they could be arrested for being in such close physical proximity to one another. They might even be executed, if the authorities had reason to believe that one or the other was infected. But since they're immune, it's usually okay for them to touch or even hold hands, but never anything more. Avengers or not, being in an intimate physical relationship is the fastest way to lose your life in The City. 

“Oh, shit,” Sam swears when he sees Steve. For a moment his eyes flicker to Natasha and Clint. But then he visibly relaxes, an easy smile lifting his lips. “Oh, hey, Captain. Thought you were a guard for a second there.” 

Steve returns the smile. He crosses the room, taking the seat on Sam’s left. “Who’s winning?” He asks, although it’s painfully obvious by the players left on the board. Natasha is missing two pawns and a rook, while Sam is down to his King, his Queen, and a knight. 

“They’re cheating,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows at the two Avengers opposite him. "Nat’s getting help from Barton.” 

Natasha corners Sam’s knight with her Queen in one swift, deadly move. Smirking, she says, “Don’t worry, this is all me. He’s not helping at all. Unless you count telling dirty jokes in Russian as helping.” 

“I suck at chess,” Clint admits, chuckling. He finishes off what is likely his third or fourth cup of coffee in a single loud gulp. Rising to his feet, he nods at Steve and Sam. “Sorry to bail, but I need to sleep. Like, yesterday. If Fury asks, I’m working on some profiles. Good luck with the game, guys." 

“Check,” Natasha says. “Barton, Rogers wants to talk to us. You can nap later.” 

Steve looks at her. He smiles, letting out a short huff of a laugh. “How’d you know?” 

“Because if you didn’t have something distracting you, you’d be helping Wilson not get his ass kicked for the third consecutive game in a row.” Her smirk grows. She watches as Sam shakes his head and picks up his King, moving it one square to the right. With one finger, she prods a bishop into position, cornering his King between her Queen and two knights. “Correction: you’d be _trying_ to help him. Checkmate.” She tips his King over with her Queen. The hollow plastic piece hits the board with a dull thud. Flipping her hair back over her shoulder, she sits back and fixes Steve with her piercing green-blue gaze. “Out with it, Rogers. Why was Carter here? What did she tell you?” 

_Of course she knows Carter was here,_ Steve thinks, defeat. Once again he finds himself both impressed and astonished by Natasha’s thorough knowledge of all the Tower’s many goings-on. 

“Carter?” Clint pauses behind Natasha’s chair. His hand falls down to rests on Natasha’s shoulder, the fingers curling lazily against her collarbone. “How did I miss that?” 

Sam resets the chess board, placing his fallen King back in its place with an air of finality. “Twenty dollars says it was cuz you were sleeping.” 

“I’m not betting against that,” Natasha says. 

“C’mon, Tasha,” Clint groans, an expression of mock betrayal on his face, “I was doing paperwork for Hill. I was stuck in my room for six hours.” 

“You just answered your own question,” Natasha replies, the barest hint of a smile hiding behind false exasperation. 

“Guys,” says Sam. Clint, who had just opened his mouth to retort, closes it again. 

“Thanks, Sam,” says Steve, shooting his friend a grateful look. Everyone at SHIELD knows that if you don’t cut them off early, Natasha and Clint’s infamous verbal sparring sessions can go on indefinitely. “Agent Carter gave me a solo mission.” He decides not to beat around the issue. It would just waste time, and Natasha would call him out for stalling. Besides, she already knows Carter was at the Tower. “I can’t tell you what the objective is, or any of the details, but it’s important. And I need your help.” 

Sam settles back in his seat. He stretches, folds his arms across his chest. “So is this an Avengers thing, or…?” 

“No,” Steve shakes his head. “I was told to assemble a team of three to act as backup in case I get into any fights I can’t handle. Which seems to be a distinct possibility. Besides, Sam, you’ll be an Avenger as soon as they can get more Cure made, right? You’re more than qualified for this. Trust me.” 

Natasha stretches, crossing her booted feet on the chess table. Miraculously, none of the pieces so much as shift from their original squares. “Let me get this straight, Rogers,” she begins. “You want us to follow you on an unspecified assignment to act as your bodyguards?” Steve can hear the disbelief and disdain in her voice. But under that, there is a veiled note of curiosity. And if he knows Natasha at all—which he likes to think he’s beginning to—then he knows that that spark of curiosity will eventually win out. Already, he can see her trying to put pieces together in her mind, building a picture that will allow her insight into things not even he has considered. 

Steve shrugs at her words. “I’m not saying you have to. But I want you guys with me on this. If you’re not okay with secrets, then by all means…” 

“I’m in,” said Sam. When Steve looked at him incredulously, he said, “Look, Cap. If you trust me to back you up, I can trust you to keep the right secrets for the right reasons. I’ve got your back.” 

“You’ve captured my interest, Rogers.” Natasha tilts her head, that slight smile back in place. "But I’m not promising I won’t figure it out.” 

Clint sighs heavily, lifting his empty coffee cup and shaking the last few drops into his mouth. Natasha looks up at him, expectant, and he caves immediately. “I’m in, too,” he says. “When’re we heading out?” 

Steve smiles at them. He hopes they know how grateful he is. “Right now,” he replies. “Get your weapons and meet me outside in half an hour. No combat suits, though. We’re going undercover.”


	3. The Restricted District

Outside the Tower, the City’s streetlights have come on as the sun dips behind the distant mountains. A haze is in the air, capturing the sun’s last rays. Red light spirals across the sky like blood through water. A few dark clouds hang over the City’s tallest skyscrapers, meandering lazily toward the south like sheep across a pasture. 

“Aww, Nat,” Clint is saying as Steve makes his way past the SHIELD compound’s final barbed-wire gate and onto the empty streets, “why can’t I bring this?” 

“Because,” Natasha replies, “Rogers didn’t say where we’re going. If we’re using the sewers or going into the unlit zone, that’ll give us away immediately. It’d be like painting a target on your chest.” 

Steve hears Clint’s disappointed sigh; Natasha’s answer seems to have convinced him. Whatever it was he wanted to bring, it’s staying behind. 

“There he is,” Sam says as Steve turns into an alleyway. The team is standing between two decrepit brick buildings, their faces obscured by the darkness of falling night. Clint and Natasha are going through their gear. Sam is loading two handguns. The latter looks up, an easy smile on his handsome face. “You ready to go, Cap?” he asks. 

“Yeah.” Steve looks past Sam to Clint and Natasha. Between the two of them, they’ve magically managed to hide what amounts to a fully stocked armory in various strategic places beneath their (intentionally) baggy outfits. “Romanov, Barton, you guys ready?” 

They nod in synchrony. Natasha’s face betrays nothing. Clint’s expression is a blend of curiosity and excitement. 

Steve takes a deep breath. He reaches for the envelope in his back pocket. His fingers brush something hard and thin, a slender metallic device encased in plastic. His termination injection, he realizes. His heart jumps into his throat, and he swallows convulsively. With numb fingers, he pulls the envelope out and opens it. Inside is a map marked in several places with red ink--indicators of suspected HYDRA activity. Tracing streets from his current location to the nearest red mark, he says, “First hot zone is two miles from here. Keep an eye out for anyone who looks like they’re infected. We’re heading through the Restricted District.” 

Natasha and Clint exchange glances. Sam shrugs and holsters his guns, pulling his jacket hem down to cover them. “We’ve all been there, right?” He says. “C’mon, guys, we’ve got this.” 

Steve shoots him a grateful look. He turns to Natasha, who is attempting to hide a stun-stick in each sleeve. “Romanov, I want you to take the map. Keep us on course.” He switches his attention to Clint. “Barton, you’ve got the best chance of seeing someone coming before they see us. I want you to go with Romanov and signal Wilson if you see anyone—or anything—coming.” 

“So you want us in a reverse triangle formation?” Sam asks, clarifying. 

Steve nods. “Yeah. Sam, you’ll be in the back with me. Romanov and Barton will go ahead and clear the course.” 

“Got it, Cap,” says Sam. Natasha and Clint break away and jog out onto the street. Natasha has the map cradled in her hands like a baby bird, her head bent as she studies it. Steve and Sam follow more slowly, walking side-by-side with their hands resting against the bulges of their concealed weapons. 

The Restricted District is surrounded by a twenty-five-foot electric fence. The smell of burning dust and ozone fills the air around it, mixing with the City’s fumes. The odor that results is a chokingly thick stench not unlike that of burning garbage. It seeps through the streets and collects in closed spaces, clogging the lungs of any creature unlucky enough to breath it in. 

“This is it,” Steve says to Sam, even though he knows that’s obvious. Like Sam said, they’ve all been there—extensive knowledge of the place is a requirement if you want to work at SHIELD. 

“Nat.” Clint is crouched beside the fence, bent over a hunched figure on the ground. In the darkness Steve can’t make out what it is, but he’s pretty sure that whatever it is, it’s alive. “Nat!” Clint says again, louder this time, “he’s hurt.” 

Steve actually hears Natasha sigh despite the fact that she’s roughly fifty meters to his left. She approaches stealthily, like a panther stalking a deer. She reaches Clint and drops down beside him. “Damn it, Barton,” Steve hears her say. There’s sharpness in her tone, but it’s tempered by pity. She sighs again, rubbing a hand over her face. 

“What is it?” Steve asks Sam as they move closer for a better look. Steve’s wary of getting too close—this wouldn’t be the first time Clint and Natasha got dangerously close to a wounded, possibly infected person. 

“Dog,” Sam replies. 

Steve’s about to say something along the lines of _‘I don't think Clint wouldn’t stop in the middle of a mission to help a dog’_ when he realizes that yeah, that’s exactly what Clint would do. As he gets closer, he realizes that Sam is right. It’s a Border collie, curled mere inches away from the electric fence. “Must’ve run into it,” Steve says. He feels a wave of sadness wash through him. The only way that such a smart animal would run into the fence was if it was being chased and had nowhere else to go. Which means… 

Natasha glances up at Steve. Her eyes are hard chips of ice in the fence’s dim blue-green glow. Her expression is darker than December rainclouds. “We need to find shelter. This attack was recent.” She indicates several wounds on the dog’s body that Steve hadn’t previously noticed—a deep set of four gashes down its flank and a gaping hole in its right shoulder. “The people who did it might still be around.” 

Steve hears Clint make a sound suspiciously like a growl. “Fuck that,” the assassin says, “I’m gonna use whoever did this for target practice. Who the fuck does that to a dog?” 

“Infected people,” Natasha replies dryly. “They were hungry, Clint.” Her voice softens slightly, and Steve sees her hand move to rest between his hunched shoulders. “Stand back. You know what I have to do.” 

“Nat…” 

“Barton,” Steve cuts in, putting as much authority into his tone as possible, “the dog’s infected. If it lives, we can’t risk letting it go. What if it gets into the population centers? We can’t risk it.” 

“Sorry, man,” Sam says as Clint stands up and walks away from the scene. “I hate it, too. But Rogers is right.” 

Clint stops twenty meters away, fists clenched and posture rigid. “Do it,” he says through gritted teeth. Steve keeps his eyes on Natasha as she backs up a few paces and lifts her gun. There’s a small _pop_ as a single dart is fired into the animal’s neck. She follows it up with three more—enough to drop a horse for several hours. There’s no way an animal as small as this dog is walking away from that kind of overdose. 

Afterward, as they power down a section of the fence and climb over it, Clint is more silent and tense than Steve’s ever seen him. At first Steve is surprised—he’s seen Clint kill infected people and Carries without flinching—until he catches Natasha’s eye and sees the soul-deep weariness there. It’s affecting her, too. Clint’s pain is bleeding into her. Steve realizes then that maybe this is Clint’s weak-spot; maybe Clint cares about animals more than people. Maybe that dog’s death will haunt him the same way the deaths of hundreds of innocent infected people haunt Steve. 

On the other side of the fence, there is nothing but dented asphalt and crumbling, decrepit buildings. Boarded windows and peeling paint tell a tragic story of neglect and disuse. Shattered glass and garbage litter the sidewalks; half-decayed paper cups clog the grime-thick gutters with rotting fibers. Steve sees all of this through a pair of night vision goggles; in the Restricted District, the darkness is complete. The City’s power grid spares no electricity for this forgotten corner of civilization. The only illumination comes from the faint orange glow to the east, where the City’s main population centers are awash with artificial light. Night has fallen, but even the moon and stars are hiding. A storm is coming. The smell of it is carried on the brisk northern wind. 

“Turn your coms on,” Steve says. His voice is like a bomb blast in the utter silence. He pulls out his own intercom unit and sticks it in his left ear, adjusting the wires so that they lie flat against his neck. He fumbles with the tiny controls on its surface, finally finding the ‘on’ button. With a loud crackle, the device begins broadcasting and receiving. “Sam? You reading me?” 

_“Loud and clear,”_ Sam replies. His voice is so crisp that Steve jumps. 

“Barton?” Steve prompts after a moment of extended radio silence. “Are you online?” 

_“We’re here,”_ Natasha answers for him. Far ahead, Steve sees her pause and crouch low to the ground. _“Looks like we’ve got fresh tracks, Rogers. The infected people that got to that dog aren’t outside the fence after all. They must’ve gotten back in when they heard us coming.”_

_“How’d they get past the fence?”_ Sam asks. It’s a question none of them can answer, and he knows it. 

Natasha’s voice fades in and out like the heat of fever dreams. _“Something just moved up ahead and to my right.”_ Her tone sinks to a whisper. _“We’ve got company, boys. Get ready to engage.”_

_“I thought this was a civilian infiltration mission,”_ Sam complains, but Steve can tell by the lift in his tone that he’s excited at the prospect of finally seeing some action. They all are. No one appreciates a dead mission. _“Why aren’t we in combat gear, Cap?”_ Sam asks when Steve doesn’t acknowledge his first statement. _“I’m not immune. One of those guys bleeds on me and I’m done.”_

Steve’s mouth goes dry. His heart is pounding. For a moment he can’t speak, his attention wandering down the street toward where Natasha and Barton crouch, shadows in the dark. He finally manages to say, “I didn’t know there’d be infected this close to the fence. The mission was to get into the underground Carrier network operating beyond the Restricted District. In case we’re about to die, maybe I should…” 

_“Shut up, Rogers,”_ Natasha’s voice hisses in his ear. _“There’re six men to your right and seven coming straight for you. If you give away your location, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”_

Steve sinks down and draws his handgun slowly. “We’re hunting the men who almost killed Stark,” he continues in a whisper. “But we can’t kill them. We need to find out who they work for first.” 

_“He’s saying we should take prisoners for interrogation,”_ Steve is surprised when Clint’s voice comes online. There’s a sharp bitterness in the assassin’s every word. _“No kill shots unless necessary.”_

“What he said,” Steve agrees. “Romanov, Wilson, I want you two to take out the six to my right. Barton, cover me. I’m going in straight ahead.” 

“Stop, strangers, and tell us your purpose in the Restricted District.” The voice that speaks is loud and raucous, like a sick crow’s caw. Through his night vision goggles, Steve tries to match the voice to one of the approaching men. When he speaks again, Steve realizes that it belongs to a tall, thickset lion of a man with long, tangled golden hair and keen eyes. “Put your weapons down and we won’t kill you,” the man says, baring his teeth and lifting a huge machine gun. He aims it at Steve’s chest. His companions—all of them rough-looking and dressed in torn leather and denim—quickly cover Sam. Natasha and Clint seem to have disappeared into the night. Steve’s infinitely grateful. Hopefully their absence means that he and Sam aren’t completely screwed. 

Hopefully. 

The gang’s leader stops ten feet from Steve. Even in the darkness, his eyes are like liquid flames. “I said _put your fucking weapons down,_ ” he snarls. Steve obeys at once. He hears the distant _clunk_ of Sam’s guns falling to the asphalt. The lion-man smiles, cruel and satisfied. “Rumlow,” he says, turning to the man on his right, “I want you to take this one back to base. He’s the leader. The others are nothing.” 

The man called Rumlow nods. He adjusts his gun against his chest, bracing it against his shoulder. “Should I kill the rest?” 

“Only the one,” the leader of the ragged men says. His eyes are fixed on Steve. “The infected are coming. We can’t risk sticking around any longer to look for the other two. Pierce wants us back by dawn.” 

Before Steve can do more than reach for the knives hidden in his boots, Rumlow has lifted his gun and sighted straight at Sam’s chest. He pulls the trigger. The report bounces between crumbling, rotted buildings like a ball tossed between children. Its sound deflates quickly, the hollow tones fading into the night. Steve launches himself at Rumlow, fear and wariness consumed by a wave of overwhelming anger. His fingers find purchase in the soft flesh of Rumlow’s exposed throat, and they go down onto the asphalt together. Yelling insults as he draws back his fist, Steve slams his knuckles into the other man’s face, once, twice, three times. And then a sharp prick in the back of his neck sends ice surging through his body, and he goes down like a corpse dropped from a tower, crushing Rumlow’s body beneath his own. Before consciousness leaves him, he manages to roll over and look up at the sky. With the last of his strength he reaches up to his com, pressing it back into his ear. 

_“Cap?” Sam’s voice comes through momentarily, weak but coherent. _“I’m hit, but it’s not bad. What happened?”_ _

Letting out his breath in relief, Steve pulls the com from his ear and crushes it in his palm, throwing it away. If HYDRA’s about to take him prisoner, the last thing he wants is for them to get their hands on the device that tells him where the rest of his team is. Even if it means cutting off his own communication with SHIELD, he has to protect his team. 

“He’s not out. Give him another dose,” the leader says, glaring down at Steve’s upturned face. 

Rumlow obeys eagerly, sending another jolt of ice directly into Steve’s bloodstream. Even in the darkness, Steve can see the blatant satisfaction on Rumlow’s face as he begins to fade. The night rises up and surrounds Steve like a dark fist, cloaking his mind in cold silence. 

For the first time in his life, unconsciousness doesn’t bring relief.


	4. Playing With Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I posted this a few minutes ago and then realized there were some AWFUL typos, so I pulled it out to edit. xD) Thank you for all the support on the past couple chapters! I'm actually really enjoying writing this, so I wrote another (long) chapter today. :D Again, thank you so much to everyone who read/commented/left kudos! You guys are the best. ^)^

As he rises back toward awareness, the first thing Steve notices is that he’s bitterly cold. Tentacles of ice creep across his skin and wrap around his insides, freezing the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins. As he exhales, he feels the moisture in his breath condense in the air, hanging in a cloud of white crystals before his lips.

The second thing he notices is that his hands are fastened securely behind his back.

“Finally.” A man’s voice speaks above him. He doesn’t recognize it. He’s not sure if that’s good or bad. “You’re awake.”

Steve opens his eyes slowly. He blinks, looking around. He’s in some kind of small, dingy cell, surrounded by thick stone walls and blocked in by a rusting metal door. Two men stand before him, guns aimed at his throat and head. One is older—in his late fifties, Steve guesses—and the other is about Steve’s age. They’re about as alike as a snake and a leopard. The only thing they seem to have in common is that they’re currently in the same room. The older man has grizzled black hair that hangs to his jawline and looks as if he’s never slept a good night in his life; the younger is well-groomed and attractive, with short brown hair and intelligent gray-blue eyes. The former’s posture is stiff and guarded, while the latter stands at ease, his gun held just above waist-level and his head tilted slightly to one side.

The man who spoke before—the older one—speaks again. This time his tone is harsher, less measured. He sounds impatient already, even though Steve’s only been awake a few seconds. “We have a few questions for you, SHIELD rat.” The man coughs wetly before hacking a glob of spit onto the cell floor. Steve doesn’t miss the man’s companion’s look of unveiled disgust.

Steve sits up as best he can, facing his captors with whatever small measure of dignity is left to him. “I’m not telling you anything,” he says, sounding a lot more confident than he feels. Shifting slightly to relieve the maddening pressure of solid metal cuffs against his wrists, he takes a deep breath and lifts his chin, meeting the grizzled man’s gaze unflinchingly. “Not until I know who I’m talking to.”

The grizzled man opens his mouth to reply, but the brunette cuts him off with a humorless laugh. “You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?” He says, raising his eyebrows as he looks down at Steve. There’s the slightest tilt to his mouth as he speaks. Steve realizes that he’s _smirking._ “Reverse interrogation. Oldest trick in the book. Every spy knows it.”

The grizzled man shoots his companion a sharp glance. There’s a mix of emotions on his face, chief among them irritation and contempt. “Shut your mouth, Barnes. This is my interrogation; I’ll handle it however I like.”

 _Barnes?_ Steve’s gaze snaps from the grizzled man to the brunette. He feels his heart beat harder against his chest. Swallowing hard, he captures his captor’s attention and holds the eye contact as long as possible. _No way,_ he thinks, his mind going numb as a warm familiarity wells up in his chest. _It can’t be._ But it _is._ He’d know those eyes and that smirk anywhere. “Bucky?” He says, shock sending fresh jolts of adrenaline into his bloodstream.

The brunette jerks his head back as if Steve had slapped him. His eyes widen momentarily and his grip tightens around his weapon. “What the fuck?” He says, his voice heavy with confusion and wariness. “How d’ you know my name?”

“Buck, it’s me.” Steve feels hope explode inside him, spilling through his body and flooding his mind with endorphins. Every inch of him crackles with electricity. He swallows, clenching his fists behind his back. The cuffs dig into his flesh, anchoring him both mentally and physically to the earth. “It’s Steve. We were in the same bunker when we were kids, remember?”

Bucky looks away, smirk fading. He shifts uncomfortably. His older companion turns dark eyes on him, watching him like a hawk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky insists. “I don’t know you.”

Steve shakes his head. When he speaks again, he can hear the desperation in his own voice. “You went missing when you were ten. I tried to go after you, but…”

“Shut up!” The older man snarls. His eyes flash and spittle flecks his lips as he speaks. “Barnes, get the fuck out. We’ll talk about this later.”

Steve ignores him. He keeps his eyes on Bucky. “…But they wouldn’t let me. They said you were dead.”

Bucky takes a step forward, lifting his gun from Steve’s throat to his forehead. “I might as well’ve been. Now shut the fuck up before I drop you, Rogers.”

The grizzled man’s expression lifts. His mouth parts and he bares his teeth in a sadistic approximation of a smile. “Rogers?” He says. “Steve Rogers? The _Avenger,_ Steve Rogers?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, one gloved finger coming to rest against the trigger of his handgun. “That one.”

“Wait, Buck, no…” Steve begins to say, his mouth going dry with panic.

“Barnes…” the black-haired man says warningly at the same time. “Put the gun down or we’re gonna have a problem. This man is too valuable…”

Bucky turns around and shoots his companion right between the eyes. “Maybe you shoulda saved your breath, pal,” he says as he holsters his gun. Turning back to Steve, he reaches into a small pouch attached to his belt. When Steve clenches his jaw nervously, Bucky smiles slightly. “Relax. Just gettin’ the keys.”

As soon as Steve is free of the cuffs, he’s on his feet and ready to fight. Despite the fact that Bucky seems to recognize him now, he’s not sure if he’s safe yet. For all he knows, Bucky has no idea who he really is and is using this opportunity to get information out of him by pretending that he does. Either that or Bucky only recognizes Captain Rogers, leader of the Avengers, and not Steve Rogers, the underweight spitfire kid who used to share his bunk more than fifteen years before.

“You got big,” Bucky says after a long moment of silence. He looks Steve up and down appraisingly, having the audacity to look impressed. The same smirk he wore earlier creeps back onto his lips. “Hope you can fight better now than you did as a kid. There’s no way you’re getting outta here alive without some serious luck.”

“I thought you were dead,” Steve says, ignoring the insult. “My mom told me after you disappeared that no one who left the bunkers ever came back.”

Bucky shrugs, flexing the fingers of his left hand and reaching for his gun again. “Yeah, well. Guess that was because they didn’t wanna get their heads blown off.”

“What d’ you mean, Buck? Wait, were you…?”

“I was exposed,” Bucky says. His tone is harsh, his eyes growing dark and full of regret. “But I didn’t die. If I’d gone back, the survivors woulda killed me for it. C’mon, the guards are gonna be here in five.”

Steve opens his mouth and then closes it, not even sure what he could possibly say. Reaching for his back pocket, he feels for the Insight files he’d brought with him. His fingers brush against flat, smooth fabric—the envelope and its contents are gone, along with his termination injection. “Bucky,” he says, suddenly desperate, “where’s my envelope?”

Bucky shakes his head. The cell door clicks open, swinging outward with a harsh grating of metal on uneven stone. “Dunno, Rogers. Rumlow probably took it to Pierce already. There’s no way you’re getting it back. Forget it.”

Steve feels cold sweat break out across his skin. His breath catches in his throat, and a new wave of panic sends shockwaves crashing through his body. “No, I can’t let them…”

Bucky whirls around to face him head-on. There’s dark fire burning in his eyes. “Forget it, okay? It’s not worth it. They’ll kill you. I’m already risking my life to get you outta here, but I don’t care about SHIELD or their secrets. So if you want my help, drop it.”

Steve clenches his fists, gritting his teeth, but doesn’t argue further. _Fury and Carter are gonna fucking kill me,_ he thinks miserably as he follows Bucky out of the cell. So much for his first mission with Project Insight.

Outside the cell is a long, dark hallway lit at rare intervals by faded blue overhead lights. It’s freezing cold and smells like old blood and fear. The walls, floor, and ceiling are concrete, pieces of the ghostly white rock chipped off in places where time and weather have corroded it. Steve shivers involuntarily, the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end. Wherever this place is, he wants to get out of it as soon as possible.

“This way,” Bucky says. He leads the way down the hallway, past cell after rusted cell. Each one is numbered, the digits rising into the three thousands as they pass. Steve guesses that this place was once a high-security prison facility before the plague, and the Carriers stepped in to claim it when the rest of humanity was underground.

“Stop!” A loud, harsh voice stops Bucky in his tracks, and Steve almost runs into him from behind. “Put your weapons down. Hands where we can see ‘em.”

“Guards,” Bucky hisses. He drops his gun with a loud clatter, putting his hands behind his head. “Let me handle this.”

The guards seem to come out of nowhere. There are three of them, all dressed in dark gray and holding machine guns aimed at Steve and Bucky. The one at the front lifts his mask and smiles, looking slightly surprised but equally pleased. Steve recognizes him from the night before—Rumlow. “Barnes,” Rumlow says, adjusting his gun against his chest and tilting his head slightly to one side, cockily, “always knew you were a traitor. I’ve finally got some proof.”

“Rumlow,” Bucky says back. Steve can hear the anger in his tone, seething just under the surface. “Get the fuck out of our way.”

Rumlow laughs, a short, mocking sound. “Pierce is gonna _kill_ you, Barnes. Helping an Avenger escape? You’re gonna wish you were dead.”

Steve looks between them, tension seizing his muscles and pounding in his chest. His eyes flicker to Bucky’s gun, considering, but it’s too far away. If he goes for it, he’ll be dead before he can pull the trigger.

“I’ll make you a deal.” Rumlow takes a step forward. The other two guards fall in on either side of him, weapons raised and at the ready. “Get out of my way and I’ll make sure you live another week. Or I could just shoot him through you?”

Steve takes a deep breath, trying desperately to calm his racing mind. _Think, Rogers,_ he commands himself. And then his eyes fall on a crack in the ceiling and realization hits him full force: the thick scent he’d smelled earlier wasn’t blood. The gas line in the ceiling is exposed and leaking into the hallway, spilling its toxic fumes into the air. _This wasn’t a prison,_ he thinks, _It was a chemical plant._

“Bucky,” Steve says calmly, “they’re bluffing. You know how I know?”

Bucky doesn’t look at him. “I don’t think they’re bluffing, Steve. You seen what those guns can do?”

“If they shoot, this whole place is gonna catch fire.” Steve watches Rumlow’s face carefully. He feels a flash of satisfaction when Rumlow’s expression momentarily contorts with confused panic. “The gas line’s open, Buck. Right above us.”

Everything after that happens so fast Steve can barely tell what’s going on. Bucky whirls around and seizes him by the front of the jacket, throwing him bodily down the passageway toward the guards. Steve stumbles and almost falls, but manages to keep moving forward. Rumlow shouts something at his goons and they holster their guns in favor of drawing knives. Bucky dives for his gun and then takes off after Steve, barely dodging Rumlow’s blows.

“Run!” He screams as he reaches Steve, who had slowed to a jog in order to watch the scene unfold. Together they race down the passage with the guards right behind them. Once they’re roughly a hundred meters from the leak’s source, Bucky turns and draws his gun, aiming back down the passage at the exposed line. “Steve,” he pants, “get ready to run like the fucking wind.”

The shot strikes its target dead in the center. The ceiling explodes, flames erupting and catching all down the hallways. An explosion rocks the structure and rock rains down around the startled guards, who drop their weapons and start yelling as they run. Rumlow shoves one of them aside to get ahead of the enormous gold and white blast swallowing the air behind him and the unlucky man is immediately devoured by the flames. His last screams are cut off by a second, even louder explosion and the steady rumbling of rock falling on rock.

Steve is completely mesmerized for a few seconds before realizing that he should have already started running. Whipping around, he takes off down the hallway with Bucky at his side. Behind them, he can hear Rumlow screaming and cursing them, and wonders how long before the blast devours him, too.

“Fuck,” Bucky swears loudly as they reach the end of the hallway and come up against a locked steel door. “Stand back.” Bucky lifts his gun and blasts the old, rusted lock into a thousand pieces before slamming open the door with his left shoulder. As he follows him through, Steve is surprised to see a dent in the metal where Bucky’s shoulder connected.

There are now only two flights of stairs and two more locked doors between them and safety, according to Bucky. But the building is falling down around them, and the fire seems to be spreading through the pipes. On one hand, Steve realizes that this is a probably good thing—the fire is taking out one of HYDRA’s bases and likely destroying the information on Project Insight that he lost earlier—but on the other, their chances of getting out alive are looking less and less good.

“Almost there,” Bucky manages to get out between deep, labored breaths as they reach the top of the second flight of stairs and break their way through to the building’s first above-ground level.

“Almost,” says Steve. As he steps out into what was once the building’s lobby, he’s met with an unsettling sight. Between them and the exit door is a huge, eight foot wide crack full of exposed pipes and wires. A smell like burning gasoline is rising from its depths.

“We can make it,” Bucky says breathlessly. “Watch me.” Without waiting for fear to catch up, he runs forward and launches himself across the crevasse. He barely makes the landing on the other side. For a moment his feet slip at the edge and Steve thinks he’s going to fall for sure, but then the moment is over and he’s safe on solid ground. He turns and holds out one hand, gesturing at Steve with two fingers. “C’mon!”

Steve grits his teeth. He can hear his heart beating loudly in his ears. Shaking his head to clear it, he follows in Bucky’s footsteps, each footfall landing loudly on the cracking tile floor. But just before he can jump, the chasm goes up in flames. He stops dead just in time to avoid being burned, backing up and jerking his head up in surprise. He meets Bucky’s gaze across the inferno and sees his own disbelief reflected there. “I’ll find a way around,” he calls, but Bucky shakes his head, looking terrified.

“No time,” Bucky says. “Maybe you can make it?”

“Maybe.” Steve takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “Look, I’ll find a way. You just get outta here.”

“No, not without you!” The raw desperation in Bucky’s voice surprises Steve. There’s something in Bucky’s eyes that he’s only seen once before, when he met Pepper Potts outside Tony Stark’s hospital room directly after the recent HYDRA attack. Bucky’s scared to _death_ , Steve thinks. _He’s scared for me._

And it’s that that makes up his mind. Stepping back a few paces, he steels himself to make the jump. Clenching his fists and steeling his nerves, he races forward just as the fire settles slightly, launching himself toward the man waiting on the other side. He feels the flames lick his boots as he soars over them. After what seems like an eternity, he lands safely on the other side and takes off running, not waiting to see if the rest of the pipeline under their feet is going to catch fire as well. Bucky is right by his side as he kicks open the exit door and emerges into the blissful night air outside.

They make it halfway across the street before the entire building explodes, the concrete walls crumbling like sand castles in the surf. Pieces of rock and metal fall around them, along with burnt shreds of paper and fabric. If there was anyone still inside, they’re probably dead, Steve concludes grimly.

Bucky sits—or more accurately, collapses—onto the curb, panting and gasping for air. During their escape his clothes had been torn in several places, including along his left arm. Steve moves forward to inspect it, looking for blood or other signs of injury, when something else catches his attention. _Metal._ His heart stops in his chest. He swallows convulsively. _His left arm’s made out of metal._

This is the man Thor described to Fury and Carter after the explosion that almost killed Tony. This is the man who almost single-handedly destroyed the Avengers.

“Steve.” Steve’s head jerks up as a familiar voice—Natasha, he thinks—sounds above him. “Move.” He barely has time to comprehend her command before Bucky cries out in pain and falls, limp and lifeless, onto the pavement. A silver dart gleams at the base of his throat.

“We got him, Cap,” Sam says, stepping out of the shadows behind Steve and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Now let’s get you to the medics.”


	5. Fever Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote another (shorter) chapter this morning, this time from Bucky's POV. Thank you so much to everyone who commented or left kudos; I ended up with a lot of awesome inspiration to keep running with this idea thanks to all the support! ^)^ You guys are the best. ;D Also, sorry in advance about all the angst in this chapter. I got a bit carried away, tbh. xD

When Bucky opens his eyes, everything is white. At first he is confused—he can’t remember anything after shooting a HYDRA interrogator dead—and then it all comes rushing back in a painful blur of light and fire. The guards. Rumlow. The exposed gas line. The chasm, the explosion, Steve’s face illuminated by the golden blast. _Steve._ What happened to him? Did HYDRA recapture them? Is that why he feels so heavy and there’s a too-bright light shining directly in his eyes?

“James Barnes.” A woman’s voice speaks, and Bucky turns his head toward the sound instinctively. Beyond the blinding whiteness he manages to make out the blurred figure of a young woman. She’s slender and beautiful, with thick shoulder-length dark hair and piercing brown eyes. She’s dressed in a dark blue cotton jacket and a matching skirt that clings to her thighs and narrows below her knees, and one of her hands is resting casually on the grip of a holstered handgun. Even though he’s never seen her before, Bucky knows enough about SHIELD to guess at her identity: this is Agent Margaret Carter, one of the most renowned Masters of the City. The realization turns his blood to ice in his veins—very few HYDRA agents who’ve seen her in person ever return to tell the tale.

“Carter,” Bucky replies. He tries desperately to calm the racing of his heart as his vision settles and he manages to take in the rest of the room. He seems to be in some kind of steel interrogation chamber, kneeling with his wrists cuffed behind his back and fastened firmly to the concrete floor. Above him is a single bright light. Its unfiltered beam is focused on his upturned face, disorienting and half-blinding him even when he bows his head. _Steve betrayed me,_ he realizes in disbelief. Bile burns in his throat and he shies violently away from the thought. _He tricked me._

“I’ll make this brief, as I have more important things to get to. Don’t make this hard on yourself, Barnes. I can tell when someone’s lying.” When Carter speaks again, her voice seems distorted, distant. Bucky thinks it’s because he’s still recovering from being unconscious until he sees the hard glint of clear plastic between them. He’s not in an interrogation room. He’s in a quarantine containment cell. Carter is speaking through the intercom.

“I’m not telling you shit,” Bucky grits out, raising his head to meet her steely gaze. But his bitter defiance is all a show—inside, panic is nearly tearing him apart at the seams, threatening to shatter his calm exterior.

“You will, one way or another,” Carter says. She moves closer to the plastic barrier, her reflection shifting with her. Light dances in her eyes like white flames. “We have many methods that are very effective. Although I don’t agree with the ethics of many of them, I will not hesitate to allow my interrogators to use them as a last resort. If I believe you’re withholding information that could save lives—and I do—then there is very little I will not do to extract it.” Her tone is grim but confident, and Bucky can’t help but flinch at her implications.

“Look,” Bucky says, a bead of cold sweat running down his spine. The sensation sends chills down his legs and to the tips of his fingers. “I was helping Rogers escape. If it wasn’t for me, he’d be dead by now. Or worse. So how about I tell you everything I know about HYDRA and you let me go? I’ll leave the City, I swear. HYDRA won’t take me back and you know it. Deal?”

She smiles slightly, lips tight and eyes cold. “We know who you are, Barnes,” she says. “We know what you’re capable of. And we know that you and your organization attempted to assassinate the Avengers team just last week.” She steps away from the plastic barrier, giving him one last sweeping look as she heads for the exit door. “If you’re looking for mercy, I’m afraid we don’t have any to spare.”

“Where’re you going?” Bucky asks. His voice is strained with barely masked anxiety. He can’t help it; panic is getting the best of him as fresh waves of adrenaline run rampant through his shaking body.

“I have a meeting in ten minutes,” she replies, hand resting on the door handle. “I don’t have time for these games.” The door closes behind her with a resounding _clunk._ A moment later, the room goes dark.

. . . . . .

When Bucky finally sleeps, it’s only for a few minutes at a time. As soon as he begins to dream he wakes up covered in cold sweat and choking back screams that threaten to rip their way out of his throat like panicked birds escaping an iron cage. As he comes back to consciousness for the fifth time in an hour, it’s to find that his clenched right fist is entirely bloodless and tingling painfully. The cuffs have dug into the soft skin of his wrist, drawing blood. _Maybe I can use it to slip out,_ he thinks. But after ten minutes of futile struggling, all he’s managed to do is deepen the cuts and chip away yet another layer of his dwindling hope.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when he finally slides into a deeper sleep, exhaustion forcing his mind to shut down completely. And even then, he dreams. As soon as the darkness swallows him the nightmares rise up to claim him.

******

_Everything hurts. He’s so scared he can hardly breathe, sharp spikes of frigid air pulling apart his lungs. He tastes blood on the back of his tongue, metallic and bitter. There’s blood on his face, soaking his shirt, gushing down his left arm and dripping off his numb fingertips. A knife protrudes from his bicep just below the joint; too deep to pull out. The blow missed his chest by inches._

_Part of him wishes it hadn’t._

_“Hold still so I can finish it,” a rough female voice says behind him, and he picks up his pace. He recognizes her from the fight outside the bunker—she’s the one who knifed him. “Trust me, it’s better this way. Let me put you down so you can rest easy. You’re not gonna make it out here, ‘n’ you know it.” He hears her footsteps behind him. She’s gaining fast. He knows that the rest of her bloodthirsty pack can’t be far behind. “I said hold still!”_

_Part of him wants to turn and fight, to meet his destruction with open arms and a fearless smile. But the reptile part of his brain—the part hardwired to keep him alive at all costs—won’t let him. So he keeps running, running until his muscles burn and his vision swims. Distantly he’s aware that he’s seeing things he’s never even dreamed of, things straight out of the stories his grandfather used to tell about life was before the plague. Buildings as tall as two hundred men standing on each others’ shoulders rise over him, like fingers pointing at the dust-cloaked sky. Here and there plants ten times the size of the biggest bushes he’s ever seen rise from the ground, their spreading roots cracking the asphalt. Trees, he thinks they’re called. He wishes he could care, could be excited like he would've been back in the bunker, but all he feels is the endless tide of rushing fear._

_He rounds a corner and finds himself in yet another dark, trash-filled alleyway. A mangy dog leaps out from behind a rusting dumpster and snarls at him. Its yellow teeth are stained red. He cries out and shies away as it lunges past him and disappears into the growing darkness of falling night. This--the setting of the sun behind the grunting skyscrapers--is another thing that Bucky should find amazing. Instead he is terrified by it. It’s only his first dusk above ground and he’s already as good as dead._

_“There you are.” A male voice speaks directly above Bucky, and he looks up in shocked terror. The crazed woman from outside the bunker is there as well, smirking down at him from her man’s side. “Trust us, it’s better this way.”_

_Bucky has just turned to run when a group of savage-looking men and women appear at the open end of the alleyway, blocking his only escape. He sees the glint of insanity in their eyes, the bubble of blood from cracked lips, and realizes: they’re infected, every single one of them. The last of his hope freezes and shatters into dust. There’s nowhere left to run. This is where it ends._

_“Hold still,” the woman demands as she clambers down a creaky, broken fire escape and drops cat-like onto the pavement before him. Blood drips down her chin, from under her hair. Her eyes are crazed, the whites writhing with bright red veins. When she blinks, a stray tear catches on her lashes and falls down her cheek. It leaves a streak of faded pink on her too-pale skin._

_“Get the fuck away from me,” Bucky snarls, his voice small and childish despite the harshness of his words. He sounds terrified and he knows it. They know it. He’s easy prey._

_The woman smiles and her bottom lip splits in two new places. Her teeth are washed in scarlet as she launches herself at her victim and knocks him to the ground. He struggles wildly, throwing punches and kicks that occasionally connect but more often go wide. He can hear himself screaming, curses and pleas mixing on his tongue. The hot, putrid breath of his attacker washes over his face as she leans down and presses her lips roughly against his, mixing her blood with his. The Morbid Kiss, Steve’s mother had called it the one time she’d spoken of it. It was the preferred method of viral communication between the infected and their prey; the surest way to transmit the disease from one to the other. No one who experienced it ever got away clean._

_Once the Kiss is administered, the woman and her horrible gang back away, their bloodshot eyes fixed on Bucky’s now-limp body. He can feel their satisfaction as they turn and disappear into the night, leaving him lying cold and alone on the dirty concrete._ Let me die, _Bucky prays to no one in particular._ Just let it end.

 _Before the virus takes hold of his weakened body, his last coherent thought is:_ I hope Steve doesn’t come looking for me. I hope he’s safe. _And then every rational thought sinks beneath a wave of piercing, all-encompassing pain and he gives in to the flames creeping through his veins._

******

Bucky wakes up screaming. The darkness of the containment cell brings no relief from the horror of his dreams. Dragging in long, shuddering breaths, he rests his forehead against his knees and closes his eyes, trying to block out the screaming that continues in his head. It should have ended there in that alley fifteen years before, he thinks. But instead, he lived.

He’s been paying the price ever since.


	6. The Mission Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this might be my last update for a little while (and I know there's not all that much action going on, but I had to get some of that plot stuff out of the way before getting to the action) since I have some other writing projects to work on and my motivation started to flatline a bit. Anyway, as usual, I want to thank everyone who has left comments/kudos or read the story so far! Thank you all so much. ^)^ 
> 
> (NOTE: this is an edited version of the chapter. I fixed a few things and am re-uploading it now.)

In the Tower there are no days or nights. There are no windows—it would make it too easy for someone to break in—and the dim, flickering lights provide constant blue and white illumination regardless of the sun's position in the sky outside. The bare white walls are eternally bathed in the eerie, almost unearthly light, the shadows of passing SHIELD agents dancing like gray ghosts on the gilded steel floors.

Inside the Mission Room, Steve paces back and forth, running one hand nervously through his light hair. Every footfall is like an explosion in the otherwise complete silence of the huge meeting room. Every breath is like a lion’s roar.

“Calm down, Rogers,” Natasha says. She’s curled on the only comfortable piece of furniture in the room—an old, overstuffed leather couch—with her legs tucked under her and her arms folded across her chest. She’s still wearing her civilian disguise; the baggy clothing looks strange on her, hanging off her athletic body in uneven folds. Steve’s used to seeing her in her tight-fitting combat gear and still hasn't gotten used to seeing her looking so casual.

“Cap,” Sam says from the other side of the couch, “we got our guy. The Masters aren’t gonna care about anything else.”

“Yeah, and that explosion was bad _ass_ ,” Clint adds enthusiastically, trying and failing to mask a boyish grin. He's standing behind Natasha, arms resting on the back of the couch. “You took out a whole HYDRA nest. That was definitely in my top ten coolest things ever.” He takes a swig of whatever the hell is in his mug at this time of the night, letting out a satisfied sigh. “Besides, Cap, Wilson’s right. The Masters aren’t gonna care that it didn’t go exactly to plan. Whatever ‘plan’ was anyway. Was there even a plan?”

“Yeah.” Steve stops pacing and scrubs one hand across his face. He lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. “There was. That’s not the problem.”

“What _is_ the problem, then?” Sam’s expression is one of confusion and concern. “Cuz there’s problem, Cap. I know that look.”

“You’re in a room with two highly capable spies.” Natasha sits up straighter, unfolding her legs and tilting her head as she watches Steve pace. There’s a slight downward tilt to her mouth and a crease between her eyebrows as she tracks him with her eyes. “We’ll figure it out one way or another. Might as well save us the trouble.”

Steve stops and turns to face his team. He can feel his heart beating fiercely against his ribs. He feels bruised all over, both inside and out. What he really wants is a long shower and an even longer nap. But he pushes those desires aside for the moment and takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “Guys,” he begins, “that man we arrested, he…”

“Almost killed Stark?” Natasha says, raising one eyebrow. Her eyes betray only a hint of the anger he knows she feels. “We know.”

“No.” Steve hears the harshness in his own tone and pauses to recollect himself. He inhales deeply and exhales slowly through his nose. “I mean, yes, he did. But he also saved my life. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be in that base. I might even be dead.”

“No and no.” Natasha uncrosses her arms. Her face is stony. Her eyes are colder than Steve’s ever seen them. “For one, we would have gotten you out, Rogers.”

“Easy,” Clint says. “We needed one more hour, tops, and you’d’ve been out.”

“Shut up, Barton,” Natasha snaps. There’s none of her usual teasing humor in her sharp tone. Clint gives her a shocked look and shifts away down the couch. There’s something close to hurt in his eyes.

There’s a long beat of silence. When Natasha speaks again, her words are hard, clipped. “For two, that man who _saved_ you is a stone-cold killer who only cares about himself and his organization. And before you interrupt me,” she continues when Steve opens his mouth to protest, “I want you to know how I came to know that.” She pauses momentarily before speaking again. When she begins, her voice shakes very slightly. “When I was a little girl, I left my bunker because I wanted to see the City. My parents were dead and I had no one to go home to, so I decided to take on the world alone. I thought I was smart enough to survive. I was wrong. If HYDRA hadn’t taken me in, I would’ve been dead in a week. They sheltered me, trained me, taught me how to survive. But they didn’t do any of it out of compassion. I found out seven years later that they were building an army of people who survived infection. An army of Carriers. They knew the Awakening was coming, and they wanted to be ready to kill every last person from Underground who dared stick their heads above the surface. It was us or them, they told me, and for a while I believed them. But then I figured out it was never about survival. It was always about domination. HYDRA wants to take over the City and restore it to its pre-Awakening state, and that means that everyone—infected or uninfected—is eventually going to be given a choice: obey or die.

“After that, I didn’t want anything to do with them. So I tried to leave, and as you might guess, they didn’t like that very much. So they sent _him_ after me. Your _rescuer._ ” Standing up, Natasha takes a step away from the couch and pulls her shirt up to her navel. Clint makes a sound low in his throat, like a wolf's growl. On Natasha's left side, just below her belly button, is a ragged white scar about the size of a quarter, tendrils of shiny, roughly healed skin extending out around it. A gunshot wound. “If it wasn’t for Barton, I would’ve died," she says, her voice flat and strangely devoid of emotion. "If he hadn’t happened to find me in that warehouse, I would’ve bled out in an hour.” She pauses, takes a deep breath. “I bet they didn’t tell you all that in your mission folder, did they, Rogers?”

Steve is shocked into silence. He can’t speak past the lump in his throat, his eyes fixed on Natasha as she pulls down her shirt and turns away. “James Barnes is a killer,” she says, her voice still colder than mid-winter, “and he should be treated like one. He wasn’t trying to help you, Steve. He was manipulating you. All HYDRA cares about is their mission. You’re either useful or you’re expendable. The only reason you’re alive is because you're useful.”

“Romanov, I…” Steve begins to say. He’s cut off by the familiar clicking of the Mission Room being unlocked, followed by footsteps and voices in the hallway outside.

“Debriefing team,” Sam mutters. Beside him Clint downs the rest of his drink and hides the cup behind the couch. They both look as shocked as Steve feels, but in different ways. Steve has the feeling Clint already knew everything Natasha just revealed and is only surprised by her sudden openness. Sam looks caught between being impressed and concerned, eyebrows lifting slightly as he looks between Clint and Natasha.

The door swings open and Agent Carter leads the way into the room, followed by three blank-faced agents and Maria Hill. Clint lets out a barely audible groan. “Here comes the Spanish Inquisition,” he whispers. Natasha gives him the shadow of a smile and rolls her eyes.

“Captain Rogers.” Carter pauses as her fellow Agents take their places around the long rectangular table at the center of the room. “Is your report ready?” He hears the silent question buried under her formal tone: _Are you?_

Steve nods. He meets her gaze steadily, trying to read something, anything from her face. He notices a victorious tilt to her mouth and his heart sinks. She must have already talked to Bucky. He fervently hopes that his childhood friend was civilized and told Carter everything she wanted to know without trouble. He wouldn’t wish a SHIELD interrogation on anyone, especially not the man who just betrayed a dangerous organization in order to save Steve’s life. But if Bucky refuses to comply with SHIELD’s demands, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to him.

“Good.” Carter’s smile grows very slightly and she nods back, poised and dignified as ever. She takes her place at the head of the table with Hill to her right. “Wilson, Barton, you’re dismissed. Romanov, remind me of your clearance level?”

“Beta,” Natasha replies, and Steve can’t help but stare at her in surprise. She’s full of surprises today.

Carter nods and smiles. “I have a few questions for you once I’m done talking to the Captain.”

Once Sam and Clint have grudgingly exited the room and locked the door behind them, Agent Carter calls the meeting to order. She looks to Hill, who pulls out a piece of paper and hands it across the table. Carter holds it up in front of her face and clears her throat. “Captain Steve Rogers,” she begins, “you have just completed your first mission with Project Insight. Although you failed to follow mission protocol and should therefore be immediately barred from future assignments, the Council has decided to give you a second chance based on the overall success of your mission. You managed to take down what we now believe was one of HYDRA’s primary bases, and in doing so killed many of their most valuable operatives, including one of the two men involved in the attempt to assassinate the Avengers team a fortnight ago.” She stops to gauge his reaction, her keen eyes meeting his across the table. When she continues, her tone is warmer and she sounds genuinely pleased. “Although you may have failed to collect information regarding HYDRA’s recent operations and members yourself, you played a key part in the capture of HYDRA’s famous assassin, James Barnes, more often known as the Winter Soldier. I believe that with the proper persuasion, Barnes will provide SHIELD with more information concerning HYDRA than anything you could have brought us. For that, you will be allowed to continue working on Project Insight on these terms: you are no longer allowed to choose your own teammates for future assignments, and will be under the constant supervision of Natasha Romanov until the Council believes that you are ready to conduct missions satisfactorily according to the outlines we give you without oversight. Do you agree to these terms and conditions?”

Steve quickly nods. Joining Insight has been his dream since he was twenty years old and SHIELD was just getting started, only two years after the Awakening. Although he hadn’t even know about the Project then—almost no one did—he had always dreamed of saving innocent people and chasing the Strocosia Morbus plague from the City forever. He couldn’t lose track of that dream now. Not for anything. Or any _one._

“Good.” Carter folds up the piece of paper in her hands and tucks it into the inside of her blue cotton jacket. Looking from Steve to Natasha, she says, “Captain Rogers, you are dismissed. I need to have a word with Romanov. Privately.”

Steve rises to his feet and pushes back his chair, moving around the table and heading for the door. The other SHIELD agents follow him out. Maria Hill is looking through a thick folder full of paperwork, her eyes glued to the pages as she sweeps past Steve and down the hall. She offers him a quick smile and a murmured “Captain” as she passes.

Half an hour later finds Steve pacing the Downtime Room, fists clenched and head spinning. _I have to see him_ , he thinks. _I have to tell him I didn't mean for this to happen._ He stops in the middle of the room, his heart beating too fast and ever muscle in his body tight with tension. _I can’t let him hate me._ In an instant, his mind is made up. If he moves fast, he might be able to get to the Quarantine Sector before Carter and Natasha are done with their meeting. He has to try.

In order to reach the Quarantine Sector, he is forced to pass back by the Mission Room. He slows as he approaches the room, hearing the sounds of voices up ahead. It’s Carter and Natasha, he thinks, speaking in soft undertones. _Damn it._ Steve's breath freezes in his lungs and adrenaline shoots through his veins. He stops dead, pressing himself back into an indented doorway just out of sight of the Mission Room's entrance. He doesn’t dare move. He doesn’t even breathe. If they find him here, they’ll think he’s been listening in and most likely remove him from Insight permanently. For all he knows, the Council might even throw him out of SHIELD. Or worse. Closing his eyes, he tries to make himself as small and silent as possible.

“He’s a liability,” Carter is saying. She sounds tired--not just tired, but exhausted. Steve is surprised. He’s always thought of the Masters as being closer to machines than actual people, incapable of feeling anything beyond the simplest range of basic human emotions. Apparently he was wrong. Carter sighs and he imagines the weariness that must be showing in her usually bright eyes. “After we extract whatever information he has, we can’t risk letting him leave the Tower.”

“If we give him enough time, he’ll escape,” Natasha says flatly.

Their voices are, thankfully, getting farther away, and Steve almost misses what Carter says next. “If the prisoner doesn’t break by tomorrow night, I’m giving you clearance to terminate him. Tell the interrogators they have twenty-seven hours starting now.”

Steve’s heart stops and then resumes at twice its normal pace. _No,_ he thinks, mind going blank with disbelief. _No no no…_

“Understood,” Natasha says. Her words are laced with thinly veiled relief.

“Enjoy the rest of the night off,” Carter says. There’s the distant _click_ of a door being opened, followed by the sound of Carter’s heeled shoes on the steel floor. "You've earned it."

“I will,” Natasha replies.

The door slams shut and the hallway goes silent.


	7. Worth It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know it's been FOREVER since I last updated this fic, but I got a random burst of inspiration and started writing it again. Sorry about how short this chapter is, but it just kind of ended naturally where it did. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy! ^)^

_I’ve got ten hours,_ Steve thinks. As soon as he's sure that Natasha and Carter have left the area, he takes off at a dead sprint toward the holding cells, his heart pounding and his mouth bone-dry. _Maybe twelve, if I’m lucky._ It should be enough. Enough to get his childhood friend out, to get him to safety… _And then what?_ A little voice rises from the darkest corner of his subconscious. _Then you’re fugitives. Then you’re on the run._ Steve clenches his jaw. Does his best to ignore the dark clouds of doubt building in his mind. _There’s no going back after this,_ the nagging voice continues. _Even if you do get him out, that’s it for you. No more Avengers. No more Project Insight. Everything you’ve worked all your life for, it’ll be over. Are you willing to throw all that away for one person? For someone you don’t even know anymore? For someone who almost killed two of your teammates? Is he really worth it?_

Steve finds the restricted hallway leading to the interrogation cells and stops dead just outside the door. He reaches out. Presses his hand to the security scan. _Maybe not,_ he thinks, _but is that gonna stop me? Buck always said I was crazy. Time to prove him right._

The door swings open with a series of clicks. The dark hallway beyond is dimly illuminated by half-dead, flickering strip lights that line the path on either side. Steve steps cautiously through the doorway. Holding his breath, he waits for the alarms to go off, for their sharp, piercing voices to end all of this before it begins. Thankfully, he seems to have the proper clearance to enter this particular restricted section, and the sirens stay silent. 

With purpose in every hurried step, Steve makes his way past the temporary holding cells. At the far end of the hall is a steel door a foot thick labeled ‘Interrogation Room.’ Steve has seen it opened only once, when he was invited to witness the interrogation of a HYDRA agent suspected of making an attempt on SHIELD Director Nick Fury’s life almost two years before. The encounter had left him sick and shaking. He hadn’t been able to eat for a day. And it hadn’t even been the blood, or the screaming, or the twisted, cruel ways that the interrogators had bent and prodded their victim’s mind and body until he came undone that had caused Steve to recoil so strongly. It had been the broken look in the man’s eyes when it was all over. The haunting blankness that said he was no longer there. _I can’t let them do that to Bucky,_ Steve thinks. A new wave of desperation washes through him. With renewed conviction, he unlocks the heavy door and pulls it open. 

The smell hits him like an oncoming truck. A putrid mix of old blood, rotting flesh, and fear clog his nose and mouth. His eyes water profusely. His lungs seem to shrink away from the dirty air. Wrinkling his nose and trying hard not to breathe too deeply, Steve steps into the dark room. He reaches for the light switch beside the door. As the blue LEDs slowly come to life around him, he’s able to make out the semi-opaque sheen of the two-way glass separating him from the cell’s occupant. Approaching it warily, he turns his attention to the dark figure lying on the concrete behind the glass. “Buck?” He says softly. No response. Clearing his throat, he tries again, louder this time. “Bucky? It’s me. It’s Steve. I’m gonna get you out of here.” 

Slowly, the figure lifts its head. Even in the half-light, Steve can tell that his former best friend is in bad shape. Bucky’s eye sockets are bruised. His lips are dry and cracked. There is a large smear of blood in the hollow of his left cheek, dripping down from a gash across his temple. 

When he sees Steve, something hardens in Bucky’s blue eyes. The assassin turns away. Refuses to meet Steve’s concerned stare. “Fuck off.” He growls. His voice is as bitter as sugarless coffee. “I’m not fallin’ for any of your shit this time. I know what I’ll get for helpin’ you. And it’s not exactly nice.” 

Steve felt his heart sink with each word out of Bucky’s mouth. His knees weaken, his heart thudding painfully fast against his ribs. “Please, Buck.” He says, willing his voice to stay steady. He swallows hard. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. You’ve gotta believe me. I just wanna help.” 

“Then shoot me now.” Bucky is on his feet so fast Steve startles into taking a step back. The assassin approaches the glass, a half-crazed glint in his narrowed eyes. His hands, which are clenched into fists at his sides, shake like leaves in a thunderstorm. “Kill me before they can get to me.” He says. His voice is low. Intense. “It’d be kinder, Steve. Trust me. Whatever they’ve got planned, I’m not gonna survive it. So I’d rather die now, before they get the chance to tear me apart and break me down.” He pauses. Takes a deep, shuddering breath. When he speaks again, he stares at a spot just below Steve’s chin. Stubbornly refusing to make eye contact. “I’ve had enough of that for a hundred lifetimes already.” He says. 

Steve feels his heart break. Tendrils of pain and anger seep into his veins, poisoning his mind and lighting his will on fire. “No,” he says, putting as much conviction into the single word as possible, “I’m not gonna let you die, Buck. I don’t care what you’ve done. I won’t let you.” 

He can feel Bucky’s incredulous gaze on him as he crosses the room and slams his entire palm against the big black button labeled ‘Lower Shield’ at the far end of the room. At once, the glass wall between them sinks into the ground. Save for the cuffs on his wrists, Bucky is free. 

Stepping forward, Steve sinks to his knees beside the other man. His fingers shake as a heady mix of fear and exhilaration course through his blood. But despite that, he has the cuffs off in seconds, helping Bucky to his feet. “Whoa.” He puts an arm around his friend’s shoulders as Bucky sways dangerously. Steadying him. Steadying them both. “C’mon,” he says, “let’s get you outta here.” 

As they make their slow-but-steady way out of the interrogation room and into the dim hall, Bucky turns to look at Steve with something close to guarded admiration in his eyes. “Why’re you doing this?” He asks. Steve hates the hesitation he hears there. The suspicion; the fear that this will all turn out to be a cruel trick. 

Steve shrugs. Honestly, he doesn’t have a good answer. At least not one that would make any sense to Bucky. 

Stopping at the far end of the hall, he removes his arm from around Bucky’s torso and places his own palm against the scanner once more. The lock retreats with a dull, echoing _clunk_ ; the door swings open easily. Outside, the bare gray-steel walls seem to close in around them. Steve is eternally thankful that nothing he’s done so far has triggered the alarm system. _So far,_ he repeats in his mind. _That’s the problem. We’re not safe yet._

“Tell me you know how to get us outta here.” Bucky says. He walks to Steve’s left, lagging just a little behind. Steve notices that the assassin’s left arm—the one made of metal—seems to be unbalancing him in his weakened state. 

“Can’t.” Steve says. “I haven’t been down here in years. Even then, I was with an escort. I never had to do any navigating myself.” 

“Great. Fuckin’ wonderful.” Bucky grumbles. Steve glances back at him. The assassin’s guarded expression has shifted from suspicion toward open fear, his pupils dilated and his poise tense. 

“Look, Buck. If they catch us, you just run, okay? I can talk my way outta it.” 

“Really. ‘Cause last time I checked…” 

Steve cuts over him. He doesn’t want to seem impatient, but they’re wasting time and if they don’t get out soon, they might not make it. He has to know that Bucky would save himself if it came down to it. There’s no time for arguments. “Last time you checked, Bucky, I was a kid.” He says. “I’ve grown up since then. I know how to keep from getting my face bashed in unless I absolutely need to now.” 

Bucky snorts. “Yeah, you were doin’ a great job of that back in HYDRA’s base. Just stellar.” 

“Hey, you were the one who started it.” Steve reminds him. 

Bucky doesn’t response. For a moment, Steve feels a strange, soaring jolt of childish triumph at having gotten in the last word. 

Up ahead, the hallway they’re walking through turns abruptly. A few feet past the bend, it ends in a solid wall. No doors, no stairway. No way out. “It’s a dead end.” Steve says, his heart sinking. He turns to face Bucky with an expression of defeat. “We have to go back.” 

At that moment, Bucky whirls around and crouches down. Falling back against the wall with his back pressed flat against the smooth metallic surface, he gestures urgently at Steve to hide. _“Voices.”_ He mouths, eyes wild with panic. _“Someone’s coming.”_


End file.
